Fear or refusal to try food is known as food neophobia. It is known as characteristic behavior of a stage of child development. Food neophobia, whose literal meaning is “fear of trying unknown foods,” refers to the fact that it rejects new foods. Products.
Sharing a meal with family or friends is often a very pleasant activity and, in most cultures, forms the basis of celebrations and celebrations. Is this a great experience? Unless there is a person with food neophobia in the family, so meals are often exhausting. , chaotic and involve constant negotiation.
- Often the act of eating is understood as a very simple process.
- Which consists of putting food in the mouth.
- Chewing and swallowing.
- But that is not the reality.
- Eating is an incredibly complex process that can be a real challenge for many people.
- As it requires the cooperation and coordination of a large number of body systems.
This reluctance to try new foods is characteristic of all omnivorous animals, among which one can be located, is an innate safety response to the potential dangers of an environment in which many foods can be toxic, so in the face of contact with new foods, the attitude is precautionary, avoiding them as much as possible and encouraging the consumption of those known to the family , so only after having tried them several times are they accepted as a safe food.
Another hypothesis has more to do with learning flavors. We have receptors for four basic flavors: salty, bitter, acidic and sweet. Sweet and savory flavors are naturally preferred by people from birth. The tendency to sweeteners in newborns is generally higher in children than in adults.
Learning the flavors begins even before the baby is born, so some flavors that are consumed during pregnancy are preferred shortly after birth, compared to others, such as pregnancy, breastfeeding is a good time to learn, as we have seen, some flavors pass through the chest. Therefore, exposure to flavors at this stage of life may be the first lesson about them.
Food neophobia occurs mainly in two critical periods of age: during weeding (4-8 months) and during the autonomy period (15-36 months). In the first, the mother-child bond promotes overcoming neophobia because the child feels protected by the parent, so the most problematic period occurs around 15 months, when the child begins to walk.
One of the characteristics of food neophobia is that it is accompanied by prejudices of negative appetite, that is, it is assumed that new foods will have an unpleasant taste, so it is important to create positive experiences associated with the inclusion of new products. In some cases, imitation behaviors work well. For example, if the child discovers that parents are eating these foods and shows signs that they like them, it’s very likely that children will agree to try them.
Reluctance to new products occurs more in food
Studies show that parents’ attitudes toward a child’s behavior have a significant impact on the development of a child’s food preferences, so to encourage the development of a beneficial diet it is important to note that parents have a preconceived idea about the foods they offer their children. For example, a restrictive attitude towards tasty foods increases your preference, while an attitude of taxing certain foods tends to have the opposite effect.
Pleasant situations in which the child shares the experience with parents tend to bring positive meanings to the foods consumed in this situation, and vice versa, all of this demonstrates the importance of parents’ response to children’s eating behavior to develop healthy eating preferences.
Despite everything explained above, neophobia tends to decrease as the child approaches the age of five or six, so knowing that their children, in the face of a new taste, need patience to overcome neophobia, can bring the sense of safety and firmness with which action is needed to facilitate the acquisition of healthy habits.